Time is slipping away

This photograph is of my girls in front of an Andy Goldworthy installation. He is an UK artist known for his environmental art, which my wife uses often as inspiration in her job as a primary school teacher. We were extremely lucky that he has just done this work in the Presidio (an ex military base in San Francisco). This is made of 37 Cyprus Pines that were all about to die, as they had reached the end of their natural life of 125 years. When this forest was first planted, it was done on mass to protect against wind, but as it was all done at the same time, the entire forest is now dying at the same time. The park forester is now working to stagger the growth of the forest so it can self sustain.

We are really starting to get close to the end of this assignment, with a little over a month before my family and I get on a plane to head back to Australia.  Ironically we are really starting to just get truly settled into the routine. My wife, Deb, and I were discussing today how we had really built a mini life here, with a regular Monday night japanese, where we are now know by name (and we don't even need to tell them 90% of the order).  We know our way around the city and have begun to understand how everything flows. Bottom line the city is now far more inviting than intimidating - which it definitely was (in parts) when we first got here.

That said we are definitely excited about getting back closer to family, video talking on skype is great, but it is no substitute for being in the same space.

As a result of up coming end of the assignment we are really pushing to fit as many experiences in as possible before we go back. On the weekend we trouped up to Napa Valley, which is the San Francisco equivalent to Margaret River, just on a much larger scale - think of nearly all of the wineries being on the scale of Palandri or Voyager. Wonderful place and we had great weather again.

these two photos are of the family and I in a cable car going up to Stirling Winery, which is the only way for the public to reach it. This is because the operations of the winery are gravity fed, so it is built on top of a hill to make this process more efficient. Fortunately for Deb and I it was about 3am Perth time, which made it OK for us to test the wines (even though in Napa it was 10am in the morning....).

We all really enjoyed it and finished the weekend at a great little restaurant called Redds. you can see what Millie thought of her dessert - Redds were really lucky to get the plate back undamaged! 

Similarly there is an urgency in the office where I am working to meet as many people as I can before I finish up. It is such a large organisation and complex structure that it has taken much more time that I expected to work my way through all of the functions.

Over the coming weeks I am spending some time with the team responsible for NCNU's relocation to a new head office. The RAC team are helping to put together an information pack, to share all that we learned from our own move. I will also be getting out to Sacramento (which I only learnt was the capital of California once I got here) to meet with the lobbying team and also to visit one of NCNUs Car Care Plus sites (think AutoServices).

Lots more excitement to come! 

Onboarding with AAA

I spent today with AAA University (the training and development team at the AAA) at their first trial run of a new employee onboarding training session (ie employee induction) . The session was attended by a mix of  long term employees and new starters, who were being asked to participate and provide critical feedback on the effectiveness of the program.

The session started with a look at what makes a brand great, which they explored by looking at some of the best know brands in the US. After looking at the adjectives that described these strong brands they then looked at the descriptors which also held true for AAA, and from there they looked at the descriptors which were unique to AAA. Very quickly the participants started to explore what made AAA great and how they contribute to that strength. Throughout the day they revisited how the brand was linked to each module, including values of employees, the history of AAA and the partnership structure of the ACA. Like the RAC, the AAA recognises that maintaining and building on the underlying brand strength is critical for the long term future of the clubs - and most importantly indoctrinates this into the employees as soon as possible.

The big advance of this program was to shift the content to be far more participatory (versus the previous model which was of the "sage on the stage" type). In effect the participants spent nearly 80% of the time self directed. Many of the exercises required the "new employees" to search on the intranet for the information to complete the exercises - as a result participants were being taught how to help themselves - and at the same time making the intranet far more relevant.

One other addition was the setting of teams at the start of the day - they did this on a diversity basis (participants were asked to create their own teams guided by a few simple rules) - these teams then stay together for the full two days of induction.  This appealed to me as I think it allows the teams to learn better, as you are not needing to constantly adjust your learning style with ever changing teams. I have personally experienced this style of cohort & sydnicate learning in the past and personally think it creates stronger long term bonds in each learning group.

One more day of onboarding to go, I think I may even pass! Until next time.

Wow! what I time to be in the US

This week has been seriously cool. The election of Obama is one of the best things that has happened in the world - it is not that anything has changed - it is only the promise of what is possible. I really hope some of this promise is realised. Being in San Francisco for this event was amazing. There was partying on the streets, it was like New Years in 1999. 

I loved this visualisation of the magnitude of this change.  Thanks to Patrick Moberg for this great image.

I also love this way of showing how America voted, with Blue being Democrat and red being Republican, with all the shades in between showing the bias either way.

Look here for all of the maps produced by Mark Newman, the author of this map.

What is really incredible is that while there was tremendous energy around Obama leading up to the election, I don't think the many people truly believed it was going to happen. It was such a release for everyone when he was successful. Today Paula Downey, the President of AAA NCNU, presented the strategy statement of the AAA NCNU and while delivering the statement pointed to Obamas election as a source of renewed inspiration and spirit for the company. Patriotic America is awesome to see in action. It is the ultimate in true belief.

In my last blog I mentioned the great things happening at AAA in there People area. One thing that really stood is the great employee volunteer program they run - check out the website www.aaavolunteers.org. They provide all staff 24 hours paid time to attend volunteering events, and if the employee is emergency trained, up to two week paid time to help with major calamities. Over the past couple of years they have helped with several major hurricane disasters, including Katrina. There is a team of two that run the program, which was recognised recently with a national award (presented by ex-president George Bush Senior), and they achieve a participation rate of 65% per annum. What is most impressive about this program is that only one third of the volunteering is done during work hours - so for the most part staff are volunteering there own time, rather than using the paid hour available.

They are also doing some great work on mapping of competencies, including looking at an all of business approach to talent management. Like RAC the biggest challenge is getting the business used to a new way of doing things. We are certainly on the same path here.

Also over the last week I spent some time East Bay, in Walnut Creek, with this regions' Market Executive, Andrea Kastner. This is too be the new site of AAA head office, which they move to in 18 months. Andrea and here team have been working on a concept for a new style of district office, which has strong parallels with the Kiosk theme that was raised at the RAC Summit in August. Great design, and I am absolutely taking what I can from this to share with RAC - and Andrea is kindly sharing freely.

Finding some really great things, but are beginning to sense that my time here is coming to a close, with only six weeks to run. 

Until next time. BTW my wife Deb has gone to bed, so no spelling or grammar checking for this post....